ABC History

Introduction

Launched in 1932, the ABC has become a much loved part of the Australian society and its cultural fabric. From a single radio service, the ABC has developed into a multi-platform media operation and a public broadcaster of international renown, delivering Australian stories and conversations across the nation and to the region.

The ABC Charter, set down by Parliament, requires the Corporation to provide informative, entertaining and educational services that reflect the breadth of our nation. Below you can explore notable milestones along the ABC’s path from its origins to its transformation today into a modern day broadcaster.

1930s

The Australian Broadcasting Commission (the ABC) was officially launched on 1 July, 1932 by Prime Minister Joseph Lyons and ABC radio announcer Conrad Charlton. “This is the Australian Broadcasting Commission,” Charlton said, before the Prime Minister inaugurated the ABC for listeners at home.

Joseph Lyons

Prior to that first ABC broadcast, Australians relied on licensed wireless broadcasting services operated by the Post-Master General’s Department. The system was run by a conglomerate, formed in 1929-1930 of individually operated radio stations across the country (this conglomerate was also called the Australian Broadcasting Company).

The ABC, however, was formed by the government as a way to regulate broadcast services and to ensure that audiences had reasonable access to a range and high standard of radio services. The ABC was based on the BBC model and was originally funded by a combination of licence fees and some government funding. The ABC’s early services included twelve radio stations across the country offering live music, sport and information programs for 11 hours a day. It was quickly embraced by Australian households and became a fixture of daily life for many.

Those first audiences were also warned by the ABC’s first Chairman of the Commission Charles Lloyd Jones not to expect the BBC given Australia was a colonial culture which could not compete with the “high broadcast standards of London.”

Charles Lloyd Jones speaking on the ABC’s opening night 1/7/1932

In establishing the ABC, the government appointed a board of directors with five commissioners, including a chairman and vice-chairman. The board met for the first time on 27 May 1932, however, they did not appoint the ABC’s first General Manager, Walter Tasman Conder, until the following year.

Walter Tasman Conder

In its early years, the ABC worked within the constraints of technological barriers for the times. For example, until a cable upgrade in 1933, the landline between Sydney and Perth could only carry speech and not music. Additionally, Tasmania was not connected to the mainland for broadcast services until a phone line was constructed across the Bass Strait in 1936.

The ABC’s first journalist, P.C. Murphy, was appointed in 1934. Consistent with the times, news reports often lifted from newspapers. The ABC’s first Federal News Editor, Frank Dixon, was appointed in 1936 and the ABC’s first Canberra correspondent, Warren Denning, commenced broadcasting from the Parliament House press gallery in 1939.

Frank Dixon

The ABC radio schedule in the 1930s included a range of content, including: the Children’s Session with Bobby Bluegum and the first pilot for the Argonauts Club; race calls from Sydney’s Randwick racecourse on Racing Notes; cable news from London including stock exchange reports and shipping news; ABC Women’s Association broadcasts of housekeeping advice; and a schedule of assorted dramas, plays, sketches and lectures. In 1934, music broadcasts became a mainstay following the appointment of Sir Bernard Heinze as conductor and musical adviser.

The 1930s also saw the beginning of cricket broadcasting on the ABC, with test matches in England relayed, ball-by-ball, via cable to the Sydney studio, where they were read out by ABC commentators – including Charles Moses who went on to become ABC General manager and Mel Morris – who described the match as if they were at the ground, “knocking” a pencil against the desk to imitate the sound of a cricket ball on a bat.

Charles Moses at desk working on “synthetic” Test cricket broadcasts.

By the end of the decade the ABC suite of stations had grown to 26, broadcasting over 16 hours a day and producing more than 132,000 hours of content a year. Australians were increasingly reliant on the ABC as source of news and information but also for their nightly entertainment, including music, comedy shows, children’s programming and sport.

Its central position in Australian life was evident in the closing year of the decade where people gathered around the wireless learned of both the death of Prime Minister John Joseph Lyons and the declaration of war by Robert Menzies in 1939.

1940s

During the Second World War, as Australian forces joined the Allied effort on multiple battlefronts around the world, Australians turned to the ABC for regular updates. The strong demand for credible news and information led to the ABC opening overseas bureaus in Europe, the Middle East, Greece and the Asia-Pacific.

The ABC sought to continue to provide an independent news service, however, it encountered some government interference and censorship by way of the newly formed Department of Information, run in 1940 by newspaper proprietor Sir Keith Murdoch.

Sir Keith Murdoch c.1940

The Department took editorial control of the ABC’s 7pm news bulletin for several months in 1940, censoring stories related to the war effort. However, after six months, media outlets demanded an end to the curtailment of the freedom of the press.

Editorial control was returned to the ABC by September 1940. However, all media remained subject to The Department of Information’s process of vetting news and information until the remainder of the war.

Throughout the war, many ABC broadcasters were “embedded” with Australian infantry units, sending backs news of life on the front and the experiences of Australian soldiers. Their work established a high standard for ABC News and its journalists that continues to this day.

During the early years of the war, shortwave radio broadcasting commenced from Northern Australia into the Pacific, as the precursor to the ABC’s international radio service, Radio Australia.

With many Australian men posted overseas fighting in the war, women began to be recruited for presenter roles at the ABC, including the first female ABC News presenter, Margaret Doyle.

Margaret Doyle

On 15 August 1945, Prime Minister Ben Chifley announced the end of the war on the ABC. ABC journalist Talbot Duckmanton (who would go on to become the ABC’s towering General Manager from 1965 to 1982) stood atop a mobile recording studio near Sydney’s Martin Place and recorded the celebrations.

In 1942, parliament introduced legislative framework for the ABC, by way of The Australian Broadcasting Act (Cth). The Act provided for the ABC to be fully editorially independent, including it its broadcast of political speech. As a result, any communications from government ministers concerning broadcasts and content had to be made in writing and recorded in the annual report. In 1946, the Act was amended to include a requirement for the live broadcast of select parliamentary sessions.

In 1945, The Country Hour was first broadcast and quickly became the ABC’s flagship rural affairs program, providing audiences outside of the city centres with vital information such as weather and stock reports and emergency information in times of need.

By the close of the decade, and as the nation entered a great period of economic growth, the ABC made plans for its future including the launch of the (then) new medium that would redefine media – television.

1950s

The Commonwealth passed the Television Act in 1953 opening the way to a new era of broadcast communications. The ABC launched its new television services on 5 November 1956 with Channel ABN2-Sydney and presenter Michael Charlton, whose father Conrad had announced the first ABC radio service in 1932, welcomed viewers and introduced Prime Minister Robert Menzies to officially launch the network. The launch also included the first ABC television news bulletin presented by James Dibble.

Less than three weeks later, and in time for opening ceremony for the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, the ABC had launched three television stations in Melbourne and three in Sydney.

ABC Children’s programming remained popular on radio- with the radio club The Argonauts attracting new members at a rate of 10,000 a year. However, kids’ programming proved equally popular on ABC TV with programs including Kindergarten Playtime launching in 1958.

By 1956, educational radio programming was being used by 88 per cent of the nation’s school teachers, playing programs like The World We Live In and the Adventure series in class. Elsewhere across the nation, mothers kept younger children entertained at home with Kindergarten of the Air and Let’s Join In.

For Australian adults, in the 1950s, ABC radio was characterised by the long-running Blue Hills serial, first broadcast in 1949. Blue Hills aired twice a day and offered drama that covered social issues of the day.

An increase in the number of radio transmitters in regional town centres also helped to increase the ABC’s audience share across the country.

ABC Radio teams engaged audiences with new ways of telling stories thanks to new recording technology. The 1950s also saw the ABC open new international bureaux in London, New York and Port Moresby. Over the same period, Radio Australia became a favoured international broadcaster in the region with local audiences in the Pacific preferring it to Voice of America or the BBC World Service.

1960s

Throughout the 1960s, the ABC launched key programs that shaped the broadcaster and its relationships with audiences for decades to come. Four Corners, the ground breaking weekly current affairs program that continues to set the national agenda today, commenced broadcasts in August 1961. This Day Tonight helped to cement the ABC’s reputation as the home of news and current affairs in Australia, complemented by the PM program on ABC radio.

The age of rock and roll led to the introduction of Johnny O’Keefe’s Six O’Clock Rock, while shows like Hit Scene profiled the cultural change underway in the 60s.

Lonnie Lee on Six O’Clock Rock, Feb 1961

Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam war and the tumultuous social upheaval of opposition to conscription saw ABC News bulletins and journalists once again delivering the latest news to audiences. ABC correspondents covered the conflict in South-East Asia just as their predecessors had done in war zones before them. Journalists in the region such as Tim Bowden in Vietnam or Philip Koch in Jakarta became nightly guests in Australian homes with their reports. Radio Australia also worked on special news bulletins for troops and dozens of Australian journalists covered the Vietnam war between from 1965 until the last troops departed in 1972.

The growing engagement with Asia also saw the establishment of new international ABC bureaux in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi and Tokyo, while Washington joined the bureau roster in 1967, a sign of Australia’s increasingly close relationship with the US.

The wavelength design logo Australians associate with the ABC was designed by Bill Kennard in 1965. Known as the ‘lissajous’ after the French physicist Jules Lissajous who studied vibrations using tuning forks, the three arms of the logo reflected the way broadcast engineers used Lissajous patterns to help tune equipment. Originally the design was to feature two arms – one each for radio and television – but was changed to three arms to avoid a copyright infringement with the University of Sydney. The three arms today can be seen to represent radio, television and online.

The wavelength logo, known as the ‘lissajous’.

Children’s programming was redefined with the launch of Play School in 1966- which has since entertained and educated many generations of Australian children. In 2016, the much-loved show celebrated its fiftieth anniversary on air.

In 1968, a new television program, A Big Country, was launched focussing on issues in rural and regional Australia, while Bellbird launched in 1967 and offered Australian viewers a modern, home-grown drama focussing on life in country Australia. It resonated well with Australian audiences and an average of 1.2 viewers tuned in every night.

1970s

Moving with the times, in 1972, the ABC employed its first full time female journalist for Four Corners, Caroline Jones. In 1974, one of ABC’s more popular presenters, Bill Peach presented a well-received documentary series, Peach’s Australia which quickly gained one of the ABC’s largest audiences at that time.

Caroline Jones

Filming Peach’s Australia 1975

In 1974, the ABC took a financial gamble on a new music show fronted by a then largely unknown music industry personality, Countdown. However, the program, produced in the ABC’s Ripponlea studios in Melbourne and hosted by Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum rapidly became one of the ABC’s most successful productions.

Ian Meldrum, Countdown c.1984

The first ABC shop opened in Sydney in 1981, selling the ABC’s own publications and other products.

The ABC continued to play an integral role in documenting and exploring the social debates of the era and in 1975 introduced the AM rock station 2JJ, or Double J, as it became popularly known.

Bumper sticker

In 1975, television also switched to colour and Robyn Williams went to air with the first episode of The Science Show.The Coming Out Show, produced by the Australian Women’s Broadcasting Cooperative, also proved popular amongst its key demographic- Australian women.

In November 1975, when the Governor General Sir John Kerr dismissed the Whitlam government, ABC News teams on television and radio bought the events to Australians, including the subsequent upheaval around the country. Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser was installed as caretaker Prime Minister following the dismissal and went on to win office in a landslide result in the 1975 election.

Gough Whitlam addressing rally in 1975.

In 1976, classical music moved into a new era with specialised broadcasting on FM from the ABC’s Adelaide studios.

Changes in community attitudes towards adult themes led the ABC in 1976 to commission a television series based on the Alvin Purple film series following the sexual adventures of the character (played by actor Graeme Blundell). Although popular with audiences, the series was less warmly received by ABC Commissioners who pulled it from broadcast after three episodes and demanded further edits. The programme was allowed back on air after minimal changes were made by producers – a victory for the independence of the ABC if not for the quality of Australian content.

A gender equity report, Women In The ABC, completed by the Taskforce on Equal Opportunity for Women in 1977 found just 28 per cent of ABC staff were women, most of whom were in low paid positions. In response ABC management appointed an equal opportunity office to determine ways of addressing the imbalance.

And in 1979 the Fraser government commissioned an inquiry into the ABC by businessman Alex Dix as it prepared to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. The Dix Review was delivered in 1980 and called for fundamental change at the ABC with 273 wide-ranging recommendations on the future objectives, powers and policies of the ABC.

The Dix Review urged the ABC to become more innovative and competitive, and to do more to market itself. It recommended that, while maintaining quality programming, “the organisation must become more entrepreneurially minded, it must overcome its distaste for the commercial”. It also required the ABC the embrace cultural and demographic diversity, stating that the “ABC has a duty to provide programs to Australian society as a whole and its constituent community elements.”

1980s

In July 1982 there were public celebrations marking the fiftieth anniversary of the ABC. That year also saw a changing of the guard as Sir Talbot Duckmanton, who had been ABC General Manager since 1965, resigned. The following year, the Australian Parliament passed the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act (1983), which helped move the ABC into the modern era and established requirements for the ABC to be both innovative and comprehensive in its services, and to broadcast programs that would inform, educate and entertain.

Audiences in the 1980s saw more comedy, greater coverage of indigenous affairs, more current affairs and a growing amounts of local television production. Radio Australia began carrying more broadcasts from indigenous communities across Northern Australia. Closed captioning was introduced in 1983 to meet the needs of hearing-impaired audience members.

Double J became triple J in 1980, with a shift to FM.

The “exploding head” of the 1980s

The ABC launched the iconic national current affairs program The 7.30 Report in 1986. Lateline and Media Watch joined its current affairs stable soon afterwards and have remained there since, ensuring journalists and presenters such as Andrew Olle, Kerry O’Brien, Geraldine Doogue, Maxine McKew and Paul Lyneham became household names.

Kerry O’Brien, 1985

Other iconic ABC programs first aired in this period include Mother and Son, D Generation, The Investigators, Quantum, The Big Gig and Rage.

Mother and Son: Ruth Cracknell and Garry McDonald

The 1980s also ushered in a new look for ABC Radio with greater emphasis on Radio One (ABC Local) and Radio 2 (Radio National). New programs included The World Today, Australia All Over and The Coodabeen Champions. The Second Regional Radio Network initiative led to the creation of nineteen new studios and upgrades to existing facilities in regional centres.

ABC News correspondents and Radio Australia broadcasters continued to cover the world with coups in Fiji and bloody pro-democracy rallies in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Domestically Australians tuned into the ABC for coverage of the Hawke government’s handling of issues such as the introduction of the Accord, deregulation on the financial sector and the move to float the Australian dollar by then Treasurer Paul Keating.

1990s

triple J started a national expansion in 1990 building on and establishing new youth audiences around the nation. By 1996 it could be heard in 44 cities and regional centres.

triple J Brisbane launch 1990

triple J: Adam Spencer, at microphone, drum logo behind.

The ABC moved into new accommodation in Ultimo (Sydney) in 1991 and Southbank (Melbourne) in 1994.

The ABC embraced the digital age ahead of many other media companies, going online in August 1995 with the launch of www.abc.net.au. It was a bold entry into the digital space and marked the ABC as a leading multi-platform broadcaster ahead of its commercial competitors. The move into the online world not only triggered new ways of reaching audiences but changes that would give established ABC programs a new approach. Funding was allocated specifically for online content through the ABC Multimedia Unit to make the new platforms self-reliant.

The 1996 election won by Liberal leader John Howard saw the ABC offer audiences the first online election coverage featuring up-to-date and interactive polling information and analysis.

And ABC Newsradio launched in October 1996 to take on, among other things, parliamentary session broadcasting. Trials for digital radio service started as well, mapping out the direction for the future of radio broadcasts.

ABC-FM relaunched as ABC Classic FM in 1994 with subsequent programming changes offering a wider range of music to audiences.

While the first ABC Shop had opened in in Sydney in 1981, the 1990s saw a dramatic increase in stores across the country to meet demand for books, CDs and DVDs of popular ABC programs.

Highlights from the television slate in the 1990s included Sea Change, Brides of Christ, The Leaving of Liverpool and Australia’s first reality television series, Sylvania Waters.

2000s

Seen as a watershed decade for the media industry both in Australia and overseas, the rise of digital technology and its effect on broadcasting platforms became increasingly apparent.

The ABC continued to meet the digital challenge through its online presence, new streaming services for ABC Radio and, in 2000, by taking the first steps into digital television broadcasts and internally by overhauling and digitised its production, post-production and transmission facilities. New shows like Grass Roots and Something In The Air were broadcast in widescreen digital formats.

Cast group: Grass Roots

The advent of TV multi-channelling resulted in the addition of two channels, ABC for Kids, and the short-lived FlyTV, billed as TV’s equivalent to Triple J.

In 2002, the ABC launched Australia’s first Internet digital radio station ABC DIG, which was listened to through the internet and increasingly via digital television sets. Digital services grew during the decade, culminating in the complete launch of digital radio in 2009, a comprehensive range of digital radio services broadcast in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

In 2005, ABC2 was launched as a digital-only channel with comedy, drama, news and sport content. This followed with the launch of ABC digital transmission of ABC1.

The next phase of digital broadcasting arrived in 2008 with the launch of ABC iview, Australia’s first on-demand service allowing viewers to watch ABC programming at a time of their own choosing. Mobile technology led to greater streaming of all content and the introduction of the first apps to allow greater access to content. ABC Mobile launched at in March 2009.

The end of the decade saw additional drama production at the ABC, the launch of a new children’s digital TV channel, ABC3, and the creation of ABC Open, a digital initiative through which to encourage digital media literacy and story-telling in rural and regional Australia and to share these stories with the rest of the community.

The ABC’s emergency broadcasting services proved invaluable during the terrible Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 with the ABC establishing fly-in radio stations for affected areas including the Victorian town of Kinglake. ABC broadcasting was credited not only with providing emergency information during the fires but also in helping affected communities get back on their feet in the aftermath.

2010s

Enabled by strategic reinvestment, the ABC launched ABC News24 in 2010, the first free-to-air 24-hour news channel enabling audiences to access news coverage whenever they needed. ABC News 24 would continue to grow and build audiences, and become a prime destination during breaking news events. IN the same year, the ABC also launched ABC3, a specialist children’s digital service.

The full suite of ABC TV channels now includes ABC, ABC2, ABC3, ABC News24 and the on-demand provider ABC iview. Never before have Australians had so many viewing options open to them.

ABC Television productions have continued the ABC’s strong reputation for national story-telling – Rake, Barracuda, Cleverman, The Secret River and The Killing Season each following in the rich tradition of the ABC providing quality Australian productions.

The Secret River

Additional government funding in 2013 provided for an increase in ABC news and current affairs services and online content distribution, further enhancing the ABC’s ability to meet audience expectations in the digital age. The ABC also commenced work on new premises in Southbank, Melbourne. Upon completion in 2017, staff from both the Elsternwick, Ripponlea and Southbank sites will be consolidated, together with radio and TV studios at ABC Southbank.

In 2014, the Corporation created two new divisions- Digital Network, to drive new digital capabilities, and ABC Regional, to ensure the needs of audiences in rural and regional Australia were being met. ABC Regional officially launched in July 2015.

New investment in digital platforms including apps, the ABC Radio Player and better streaming facilities have enabled the ABC to meet audience expectation in the digital age. Podcasts and iview first-release productions such as the Katering Show have been well received with audiences.

The ABC has grown remarkably since it launched on 1 July 1932. This is a snapshot of our achievements, programs and personalities and celebrates the ABC's contribution to Australian life for more than 80 years.